Mark Tobey (1890-1976) - Untitled

Mark Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was a pioneering American abstract painter widely celebrated across the United States and Europe. As the senior figure and mentor of the Northwest School in Seattle, his distinctive, densely layered style bridged Western abstraction with Eastern philosophy. Though his intricate compositions visually align with Abstract Expressionism, his introspective, meditative motivations differed vastly from the ego-driven action painting of his New York contemporaries.

Mark Tobey maintained a significant creative relationship with the Swiss print publisher and gallery Erker Presse (and Erker Galerie), located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. During the late 1960s and 1970s—a period when the American abstract expressionist pioneer lived and worked extensively in nearby Basel—he collaborated with the press to produce several prominent limited-edition lithographs.